A Mile A Day

Day 175 Rocked!!! (Read 59 times)

So yesterday on day 175 for me, I had an 18 miler planned. I had been kind of dreading this run. The last 18 miler I ran was over a year ago and it was SO MISERABLE that I dropped out of the marathon I had planned to do last Spring. I struggled and limped my way through the last 5 miles of the run last year and figured it just wasnt worth it - or at the least that I had done something wrong in training and needed to start over.
But yesterday was nice. Unfortunately it fell right after my monthly poker game, so I only got about 4.5 hours of sleep, and the first 5 miles felt like I was still asleep - very slow and muscles felt tight and tired. I entered some preservation land at mile 4 and did a loop through some paved trails - very hill but my pace didnt slow down adn I think the hills woke me up a bit.
BAD PART - there is a visitor station at this preservation land that has a vendign machine with water, so I had planned on hittting that and took a GU about a half mile before I hit the station. Ooops, lost my two dollars I had brought to buy water. So I sat with a GU in my stomach for the next 4 miles heading home. Felt like big rock in there.
But at the 11ish mile marker I got home, had a quick GU and about 8 ounces of water and I was reborn. My pace picked up from the 8:30-8:45 I had been doing to probably 7:45s and feeling fine. I then did a 3.2 mile loop and held that pace for the entire thing.
Last loop was 4.6 miles and my pace actually got faster. I averaged 7:22s for the last loop and my legs still felt pretty strong at the end. I could have used more water and a GU at the 17 mile mark, but I was able to hold pace without it and in retrospect next time (or at least on my 20 milers) will cut back the loop to take water and GU every 3 miles.
Finished 18.3 miles in 2:30:18, averaging 8:12. I am pretty happy with this since my goal pace for the marathon is 8:00mpm.
Man, I was tired for the rest of the day though, but very happy with the run and it definitely helped make me more confident in being able to pull off a strong marathon showing in October.
Jeff